Part 5
By the time the last car backed out of the driveway, the sun was beginning to set, casting long, bruised shadows across the lawn. Maya stood at the kitchen sink, scraping plates and loading the dishwasher. Her feet ached, but it was the good, satisfying kind of exhaustion that came after a successful party.
Evan, however, had barely spoken a word since the guests left.
He stood leaning against the kitchen island, staring at the floor. He hadn’t offered to help carry the heavy coolers inside, nor had he gone upstairs to read Eli a bedtime story. He just stood there, wrapped in a suffocating, hostile silence.
Maya wiped her hands on a dish towel and turned to look at him. “Hey. Are you okay? You’ve been a million miles away since your mom left.”
Evan looked up. His face was pale, his jaw locked tight. He didn’t close the distance between them.
“I want a DNA test,” he said.
The words were flat and quiet, but they hit the room like a physical shockwave. Maya stared at him, her brain failing to process the sentence. She let out a short, nervous laugh, assuming she had misheard him over the hum of the refrigerator. “What?”
“For Eli,” Evan said, his voice hardening, defensive anger creeping in to cover his shame. “I want a paternity test. Tomorrow. If you refuse, I’m calling a lawyer on Monday morning.”
The dish towel slipped out of Maya’s hands and hit the floor. The kitchen suddenly felt very cold. She looked at the man she had built a life with, the man who had defended her so fiercely in his parents’ hallway six years ago, and realized he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the cabinet behind her head.
“You’re joking,” she whispered, her voice barely holding steady. “Tell me you’re joking, Evan.”
“You think I didn’t realize?” he fired back, the volume of his voice rising as he tried to convince himself. “You bring up Drew at the reunion. The guy who never left town. And then I started thinking about the timeline. That week you walked out. That week you stayed at your sister’s right before you got pregnant.”
Maya grabbed the edge of the granite counter, her knuckles turning white. The sheer absurdity of the accusation was eclipsed only by the profound, agonizing betrayal of it. She didn’t need to ask where this had come from. She could hear the exact cadence of Elizabeth Davis echoing in her husband’s mouth.
“She finally got to you,” Maya said, her voice dropping to a harsh, quiet rasp. “Six years of trying, and she finally found the crack. You’re actually letting her do this to us.”
“This has nothing to do with my mother!” Evan yelled, slamming his hand flat against the island. “This is about you! You need to prove it, Maya. I need to know he’s mine.”
For a long moment, Maya just looked at him. The initial wave of panic and tears receded, replaced by a deep, freezing clarity. She could cry and beg him to believe her, but that wouldn’t erase the doubt his mother had planted. If she fought him, he would only think she was hiding something.
Maya bent down, picked up the dish towel, and folded it carefully on the counter.
“Fine,” she said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. “I’ll order the clinical swabs. We’ll go to a lab. I have absolutely nothing to hide from you.”
Evan exhaled a shaky breath, the fight temporarily deflating out of him. “Thank you.”
“But I have one condition,” Maya continued, stepping closer to the island, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I will do this, but you are doing one, too.”
Evan frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m the one being tested against Eli.”
“No,” Maya said, her gaze steady and unyielding. “You are going to get a DNA test to prove your paternity with your father. Nicholas.”
Evan stared at her, utterly bewildered. “Are you out of your mind? Why would I do that?”
“Because your mother is obsessed with infidelity,” Maya said, her voice sharp and precise. “She has spent six years convinced that I’m cheating on you. People who are that pathologically suspicious of others are usually projecting their own guilt. So, if we’re going to tear this family apart based on Elizabeth’s theories, we are going to test her loyalty, too. If you want my test, you get one with Nick. That’s the deal.”
Evan’s face flushed dark red. “That is the most insulting, ridiculous thing I have ever heard! My parents have been married for thirty years! You’re just trying to deflect because you’re scared of what Eli’s test will show!”
“I am not scared of anything,” Maya fired back, not giving an inch. “Get the swab from your father, Evan. Or you can call your lawyer on Monday.”
She didn’t wait for his answer. She walked out of the kitchen, leaving him standing alone in the quiet house.
By Tuesday, the silence in the condo had become unbearable, and Evan finally cracked. He realized Maya was absolutely serious. She would not proceed without his compliance. Reluctantly, feeling ridiculous and deeply uncomfortable, Evan drove over to his parents’ house while Elizabeth was out at a committee meeting.
He found Nicholas in the garage, organizing a toolbox.
Evan stumbled through the explanation, carefully omitting the fact that Maya had demanded it as a counter-strike, and instead framing it as a bizarre, trendy genealogy test he wanted to do as a father-son bonding activity.
Nicholas set down a wrench, looking at his son with heavy skepticism. “A genealogy swab? Evan, I know I’m mostly English and German. I don’t need a lab to tell me that. This seems like a massive waste of time.”
“Dad, please,” Evan pleaded, the genuine stress bleeding into his voice. “Just humor me. It’s important to me. Just swab the inside of your cheek. It takes ten seconds.”
Nicholas sighed, wiping his hands on a rag. He looked at Evan’s strained face and recognized that his son was under immense pressure, even if the excuse made no sense. “Alright, Evan. If it means that much to you, give me the damn cotton swab.”
Two days later, the clinic sent an email notifying them that the physical results were ready for pickup.